Essays on trans, intersex, cis and other persons and topics from a trans perspective.......All human life is here.

This site is the most comprehensive on the web devoted to trans history and biography. Well over 1400 persons worthy of note, both famous and obscure, are discussed in detail, and many more are mentioned in passing.)

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In addition to this most articles have one or more labels at the bottom. Click one to go to similar persons. There is a full list of labels at the bottom of the page. There is also a search box at the top left. Enjoy exploring!

Bert Martin, in Nebraska Penitentiary for horse theft, was accused by his cell-mate of being a woman. He was redressed and transferred to the women's section. Early in 1902, the Governor of the state commuted the sentence and Bert was released. Bert is known to have fathered 3 children.

Mexico City. 41, 19 in female dress, were arrested at a private party. There were no formal charges, no trial. 19, probably not the same 19 who were in female dress, were unable to buy their liberty, and were inducted into the army and sent to do forced labour in the Yucatan as part of the war against the Mayans.

Norma Jackson. St Helens, Lancashire, was convicted of procuring another to commit a gross indecency. She was sentenced to 18 months hard labour in a men's prison. The sex-reform movement adopted her case, and were able to get her transferred to HMP Wormwood Scrubs so that she could attend the Tavistock Clinic three times a week for psychotherapy.

1932.

The anti-sodomy laws in Poland had not been enforced since independence in 1918. Now they were officially repealed.

Soviet Union. Article 121 which criminalized homosexuality, was added to the criminal code for the USSR. Abortion was also banned.

1936.

David Petillo, New York, transvestite and gangster sent to Sing Sing prison on white slavery charges. He served 20 years.

1937-45.

Many German gays and trans sent to concentration camps, and identified by a Pink Triangle.

1938.

Michael Higgins, Los Angeles, was arrested on charges of grand theft and fraud, and found to be female-bodied. He had been previously arrested without his body-sex coming to light.

1940.

Iceland, under UK occupation, decriminalized homosexuality.

A physician at San Quentin prison, California, discovered that one prisoner, born male, and living as male, had been surgically altered to female. (Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: 48).

1942.

Switzerland decriminalized homosexuality.

Vichy France passes 1st proscription of homosexual acts since 1789: prison for sex with any man under 21. This law was retained after Liberation in 1945.

1944.

Sweden & Surinam decriminalized homosexuality.

Charlotte von Mahlsdorf of Berlin was sentenced to 4 years for killing her Nazi father, but released with the fall of the Nazi regime.

1945.

German gays and trans who survived the concentration camps were transferred to regular prisons to complete their sentences.

1945.

Fascist Portugal decriminalized homosexuality.

1940s-60s.

Los Angeles. From the late 1940s on, so many gays and trans were arrested, often as a result of entrapment, that an entire section of Lincoln Heights Jail was reserved. This was known at the 'fruit tank'.

1947.

John Herbert Brundage was mugged, but he was the one arrested on charges of solicitation. 6 months in Guelph Reformatory.

1948.

Bill Allen, Lancashire, was convicted of murdering a neighbour. He was held at HMP Strangeways, and hanged a few months later.

Poland, now Communist, again decriminalized homosexuality.

1949.

Newly independent India repealed the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871.

1950.

Josephine Montgomery, California, was arrested and convicted of strong-arm robbery. After two months in the women’s wing of the Imperial county jail, and one night in the women’s prison at Tehachapi, a routine physical exam resulted in a transfer to a man’s cell at San Quentin.John Herbert Brundage was arrested for being a gay transvestite. Several months in Mimico Reformatory.

East Germany partially abrogated Nazi additions to Paragraph 175.

1951.

Greece decriminalized homosexuality.

The future Gloria Hemingway was arrested en femme in the women’s restroom of a Los Angeles movie theater. Hemingway's mother, Pauline Pfeiffer flew down to be supportive, but was dead of a pheochromocytoma tumor on her adrenal gland two days later. Hemingway was then released.

1950s-1970.

In California and other states, merely being gay, and trans was taken to be a symptom of being gay, could result in a life sentence. Many such in California were incarcerated in Atasceradero State Hospital, a maximum-security facility, which came to be known as the 'Dachau for queers'. Atasceradero was frequently visited by Dr Walter Freeman who specialized in ice-pick lobotomies. This was done through the eye socket. Of the 4,000 patients he treated this way, over 30% were diagnosed as homosexual.

1952.

Miami, Florida. Municipal law against cross-dressing.

1954.

Spain's Ley de Vagos y Maleantes, was amended by the Franco dictatorship to include homosexuals.

Florencio Pla Meseguer of the anti-Fascist Spanish Maquis was captured, convicted of atrocities that he had nothing to do with, and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted, and he was included in the 1977 amnesty.

France strengthened the 1942 proscription with increased penalties.

1961.

Czechoslovakia & Hungary decriminalized homosexuality. Kurt Freund was one of those who argued for it in Czechoslovakia.

Leslie Elaine Perez and girlfriend were sentenced to the electric chair for killing a john. After a last-minute reprieve, a retrial, incarceration in a mental institution, an escape and five years on a prison farm, Leslie was released in 1971.

Max Perkins, North Carolina, sentenced to 20 years under the 1533 Buggery Act for consensual sex while partner released after 17 months. After 3 years got a retrial and found not guilty partly partly because she dressed as a man this time.

David Van Rippey, in Monroe County Jail for bigamy, was found to be female-bodied after refusing a medical exam. This led to both his marriages being deemed to be void, and he was paroled.

New Zealand Crimes Act abolished all common law offences and all offences against Acts of the British Parliament, and defined what are crimes in the country. Part 7 criminalized crimes against religion, morality, and public welfare, which included homosexuality, blasphemy and incest, although it did reduce penalties.

1962.

Up to this year sodomy was a felony in every US state, punishable by lengthy imprisonment, sometimes with hard labor. That year the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code removed consensual sodomy while retaining solicitation for sodomy. Illinois adopted this change. The decriminalization would not be adopted nation-wide until 2003. See here for state-by-state details.

Toronto. After a car accident which killed her best friend, Dianna Boileau was charged with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving. She was read by the prison matron, and transferred to men's facilities. She spent 4 days in the Don Jail for men, until her boss raised the bail amount. At the trial, after 10 minutes the all-male jury returned a verdict of not guilty.

A Montréal woman explained to a judge that she was dressed as female because she intended to get the operation, and he sent her to prison for a year for that alone. (Namaste, Sex-Change, Social Change: 13)

England & Wales. The Sexual Offences Act decriminalised homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age in private. This was followed by a surge in the number of arrests for 'indecency between males'.John Herbert Brundage's Fortune and Men's Eyes, based on his two terms in prison for being gay and trans, a theatre event of the year. Released as a film in 1971.

Chad decriminalized homosexuality.

1968.

East Germany & Bulgaria decriminalized homosexual acts over the age of 18.

Valerie Solanis, butch lesbian, shot Andy Warhol. She was indicted on charges of attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a gun., but was found incompetent. The next year she was deemed fit and she pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to three years the New York State Prison for Women.

1969.

Rae Bourbon, aged 75 and in ill-health, was convicted in Texas of being an accomplice to murder. He was sentenced to 99 years and died 2 years later.

While many were arrested at the raid on the Stonewall Bar in New York, many also escaped from arrest, in particular Ed Murphy who was running the blackmail ring that was the nominal excuse for the raid. Apparently nobody went to prison as a result of the raid.

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About Zagria

I have a social science degree. I spent several years in the 70s doing Gay Lib counselling, and moved on to organizing trans groups. I was rejected by the Clarke Institute (now CAMH) in the mid 1980s, probably because I do not match either of their stereotypes, but was accepted by Russel Reid on our first meeting in late 1987, and had surgery from James Dalrymple some months later. I have mainly worked as an IT consultant. I have been with the same husband for 45 years.